Mea culpa – I didn’t think Trump would win the Canada/Mexico trade war just like that . . .
Wow . . . could it have happened any quicker? Just like that, Mexico agrees to armed troops on the Rio Grande, and arrests an untouchable drug kingpin. Canada also promises to stop the flow of fentanyl and human traffickers bringing migrants south.
My go-to handbook for all things economic is usually the Wall Street Journal. The WSJ yesterday predicted defeat or at least surrender by America. I bet their op/ed writers are in a huddle right now. (“Hmmm . . . where did we go wrong? Did we overestimate America’s dependence on Fentanyl, and unvetted drug gang members?”)
In the meantime, Biden as taken a position. He hired CAA (Creative Artists Agency) to help him find someone to ghost write his memoirs. Going to be tough, since Biden can’t seem to remember where he put most of those top-secret papers. I’m not condoning Trump’s theft. But at least he knew where they were.
The Obamas rang Hollywood’s doorbell 30 seconds after leaving the White House too. They started their own agency (“Higher Ground”) with backing from Netflix. Barack and Michelle are represented by Qadriyyah “Q” Shamsid-Deen, someone nobody has ever heard of but is probably well-connected. The Obamas' first Netflix effort was “Leave the World Behind”, a streaming only release where cyber terrorists take down the entire USA. Holy Guacamole, Batman! I expected better from the Obamas. At 2 hours and 20 minutes, Leave the World Behind is ridiculously long. Netflix has been opaque about the production cost and revenues but claims it has been streamed more than 100 million times. “Stranger Things” have happened, of course . . .
Back to Trump’s 6-day trade war. CNN had the best take this morning. Some talking head said the tariff strategy came straight out of “Art of the Deal” (Trump’s own ghost-written book), where adversaries rely on brinkmanship. Whoever flinches first loses. I'm okay with this, as long as nuclear weapons are not involved. Hamas seems to have surrendered too and is disgorging their tortured civilian captives. This is just a strategy to re-arm, however. Expect to see a resumption of hostilities later this year.
Over the next 2 years I think the financial markets have more downside than upside. Not because of Trump, but because of America’s ridiculous $36 trillion national debt. That’s more than the next 10 nations combined. Elon Trump is evidently preparing to end the Department of Education, US Agency for International Development, the Federal Reserve and a wider alphabet soup of high spending, low accountability paper pushers.
That sounds scary. Just like a trade war with Canada and Mexico sounded scary. But I’m reigning in my skepticism. I want to see who blinks next. We may, in fact, see wholesale budget cuts and staff departures at a bunch of federal agencies which simply duplicate state level regulation and activities. At least, I hope that’s what happens.
I’m just sayin’ . . .
My go-to handbook for all things economic is usually the Wall Street Journal. The WSJ yesterday predicted defeat or at least surrender by America. I bet their op/ed writers are in a huddle right now. (“Hmmm . . . where did we go wrong? Did we overestimate America’s dependence on Fentanyl, and unvetted drug gang members?”)
In the meantime, Biden as taken a position. He hired CAA (Creative Artists Agency) to help him find someone to ghost write his memoirs. Going to be tough, since Biden can’t seem to remember where he put most of those top-secret papers. I’m not condoning Trump’s theft. But at least he knew where they were.
The Obamas rang Hollywood’s doorbell 30 seconds after leaving the White House too. They started their own agency (“Higher Ground”) with backing from Netflix. Barack and Michelle are represented by Qadriyyah “Q” Shamsid-Deen, someone nobody has ever heard of but is probably well-connected. The Obamas' first Netflix effort was “Leave the World Behind”, a streaming only release where cyber terrorists take down the entire USA. Holy Guacamole, Batman! I expected better from the Obamas. At 2 hours and 20 minutes, Leave the World Behind is ridiculously long. Netflix has been opaque about the production cost and revenues but claims it has been streamed more than 100 million times. “Stranger Things” have happened, of course . . .
Back to Trump’s 6-day trade war. CNN had the best take this morning. Some talking head said the tariff strategy came straight out of “Art of the Deal” (Trump’s own ghost-written book), where adversaries rely on brinkmanship. Whoever flinches first loses. I'm okay with this, as long as nuclear weapons are not involved. Hamas seems to have surrendered too and is disgorging their tortured civilian captives. This is just a strategy to re-arm, however. Expect to see a resumption of hostilities later this year.
Over the next 2 years I think the financial markets have more downside than upside. Not because of Trump, but because of America’s ridiculous $36 trillion national debt. That’s more than the next 10 nations combined. Elon Trump is evidently preparing to end the Department of Education, US Agency for International Development, the Federal Reserve and a wider alphabet soup of high spending, low accountability paper pushers.
That sounds scary. Just like a trade war with Canada and Mexico sounded scary. But I’m reigning in my skepticism. I want to see who blinks next. We may, in fact, see wholesale budget cuts and staff departures at a bunch of federal agencies which simply duplicate state level regulation and activities. At least, I hope that’s what happens.
I’m just sayin’ . . .
31-35, F
